isthisthingon’s Comments

Interesting read with a humorous flow that helps make an often tedious level of legal discovery interesting.

But that's not why I decided to finally comment on one of your posts. I read your work all the time and you've been a source of inspiration for me. Perhaps what baffles me most is the degree of baseless and angry opposition you face in most all of your articles.

They seem to be coming from reasonably intelligent people who should at least be aware that their blind opposition is transparently just that. This tactic works well on AM radio but looks silly and impotent here, imho. Obviously you're hitting on sensitive areas that people invested in existing power structures fiercely defend, perhaps resulting from financial ties or simply their egos. Keep the light on and eventually the roaches will scatter.

But again, thank you for all the hard work. You do an exceptional job challenging accepted beliefs and bringing clarity and understanding to areas where most of us simply remain asleep and trust our spoon fed truths.

I'd strongly recommend reading Free by Chris Anderson, not just because you would then understand what all this talk is about, but because it's very important to grasp.
Free can be easily switched with the concept of too cheap to meter. And yet you might think, well at least *somebody* has to pay for all this stuff! True, but when these costs are diluted to a point where the value of the product or service is worth more when it is given away for free - like table salt - then it becomes a member of the "free" family. Keep charging per grain of salt, no matter how cheap you make it, and your competition giving it away will put you out of business: making good money selling food while giving away the free salt.

Sick evil bastard. Leveraging cleverness, you righteously perpetuate what's wrong in this world. That is the extent of your legacy, little lawyer. You sledgehammer your well crafted yet false assertions into the minds of those who simply seek acceptance.
The RIAA had a wet dream and behold, you were born.

Dear illiterate poop bowl of hate and intolerance,
Stop breathing. Furthermore, know that someone in this world sees the truth behind your fraudulent and opportunistic façade your fragile ego hides behind. You suck. Why am I so harsh on you? Because anything less scathing wouldn't even be read by a sociopath such as yourself.
Quickly now, reduce my grammar to a dismissable straw man and quiet the storms of your sand castle self confidence. MTV is the ultimate achievement your current path has to offer.
Wake up or shut up. Actually, just shut up. Shut up until you start behaving like the less unoriginal beast your parents worked so hard to produce. They deserve better so don't be such a poop stain. Now go clean your room.

Regardless of how you "vote" on this, just because something is the law doesn't make it good in any way. The law needs more correction in most countries than it claims to provide to the people within.

IP extremists have one thing that matters to them most: their hopes of having their turn amassing large amounts of money riding on an artificially imposed mini-monopoly that this corrupt system of elitist laws would provide them.

The term "intellectual property" is ridiculous on all levels and is supported by two kinds of people:

1. Those who don't realize what it does to the world
2. Those who do but care more about personal gain than the welfare of others

>In the old deal the artist paid for fame with their music, and got to keep the profits from fame (touring and merchandise dollars) mostly to themselves.

Wrong. The record company "deal" hasn't changed and still involves surrendering the rights to your own creative works for a very small portion of the proceeds.

>Since the music is rapidly becoming un-monetizable,

You might want to brush up on your business basics. Truly the only real looser with Internet based music is the massive distribution companies who we no longer need. Think about it, their main purpose was to promote and distribute creative works. Why in the world should we continue to pay them for distributing anything that is instantly available in digital format? One reason - they are huge, powerful, already exist and plan to maintain their dominance - as any self respecting public company should.

Trust a public company to attempt to maximize their own profits. When technology renders a company useless, trust them to use legal and other means to continue to bring dollars in. We have to be the ones to wake up and realize a service no longer has any real value.

And I'm not holding my breath for you to do so. After all, who wants the discomfort endured when challenging one's fixed beliefs? No self-respecting market fundamentalist would give the lint from their fur coat pocket to any endeavor that hints at challenging the elitist truths they ride so glutinously high on.

>"This myth (myth??) is usually spread (usually spread? Please itemize the other forms of said dissemination. Otherwise I call BS on "Mark" since you simply must be Ann Coulter) by those who work in academia or government or a private business that benefits from the work of others, usually without compensation."

Really? Wow. Is this based on a Fox "News" poll or something less credible such as your personal interpretation of said poll? Either way, your passion for factually sound research is admirable.

>"The problem with this theory is that it almost never looks at what is very difficult to see, which is the cost to society when the world's best minds stop sharing innovations"

The world's best minds *never* stop sharing their innovations. Only the snake oil hucksters do. Those who would stop sharing their innovations in the area of, for example, cancer research, simply because they couldn't maximize their selfish profit from said innovation - should keep their poisonous "inventions" to themselves. They should go ahead and live out their lives keeping all that greatness bottled up to appropriately maximize their legacy on this planet.

You, sir, are either one of these energy vacuums or are completely blind to the puppet strings operating your jaw.

Since when did human suffering become trendy? Take a moment to learn about how the IP umbrella keeps 3'rd world countries squarely in their hopeless place. Consider the millions of fallen souls that would still be alive were it not for pharmaceutical patents "protecting" the Pfizers of the world who demand ridiculous sums for their life saving AIDS treatments.

Yep I'm passionate about this and have come to an understanding about the issue. Once you know what's really going on you simply must reject the IP movement or in my experience you fall into two categories: the ignorant or the greedy. There's perhaps room for the cowards who are unable to challenge their neocon peers as well. But drinking from the fountain of comfort and support for your ignorance is as bad as pulling the trigger yourself, IMHO.

>Next time thing before you speak.
LOL - "thing" before YOU speak! Intellectual Property is literally a term with the attempt of grouping dissimilar forms of protection into one, simple, combination meal that Fox News Americans can actually wrap their entropied minds around.

Even the attempt to lump someone's musical art into the same bucket as a functional invention is what we've all missed somewhere along the way. Try reading this and use your thinker:

I'm sorry but claiming that since fashion has various levels of distinct segments it falls outside the reasonable realm of what justifies copy protection is extremely thin. In fact, it's really just another greed pie covered in meringue.

Copy protections are thinly veiled protectors of mini-monopolies, period. I've spent weeks on end with lawyers on both sides of the patent "infringement" game. It's a game for the rich and has nothing to do with protecting individuals from having their hard earned inventions "stolen" from them. Individuals lose to others with deeper pockets - almost always. Therefore it's another case of greed pie with the meringue of "protecting individuals."

Those that play deeply in this game know this truth. It's just that they wouldn't have an income if we all figured it out. They truly appreciate you parroting their smokescreen, especially since you're obviously an intelligent person.

I would venture to say you either are a good concerned person that drank their punch or truly one of them and probably quite afraid that the world is waking up to this ethical shell game that no longer has a place in the age of information.

And please ask me to back up my assertions. But careful what you wish for, unless you're ready to have a change of heart on the subject or outed as a capitalist shark if that's what you truly are.

Thank you Blaise! Your work inspired me to write about you at a blog that I contribute to on a daily basis called The Technology Cache (link at bottom if interested). I've been a fan of the FSF and dissolving the digital divide for quite some time. Although you've presented the business benefits of a "free" approach, I'm also interested in how the western concept of "intellectual property" does actual damage to less fortunate societies.
As a lifelong software engineer who's now an open-source/free software advocate, I'm always researching to learn more about equitable ways to encourage a world of sharecropping where those who contribute are rewarded and those who rely on the artificial creation of scarcity find themselves forced to... actually contribute :)
Here's the link just in case you're interested: http://www.perkiset.org/forum/freemem_garbage_collection/free_doesnt_mean_devalued-t2125.0.html;msg1 7512;topicseen#msg17512
Best regards,
Adam

Everything I've read from you makes sense except this comment. Are you forgetting the impending, tiered approach to broadband pricing that penalizes certain levels of use and even perhaps the subjective pricing of traffic based on content?

Funny thing is, to oppose net neutrality is to be a proponent of regulation. It's just that you support corporate and not government regulation. In this case the government plans to disallow discretionary based, corporate regulation of Internet traffic. Isn't that a good thing?